Life Sciences
Massachusetts Life Sciences Industry: Leading Indicators
The life sciences industry and Massachusetts are synonymous, and the state has become known as the world’s leading life sciences supercluster. Companies relocate from across the world so they can be among the best biotech, pharma, and healthcare organizations here in the Commonwealth. Massachusetts boasts over 35 million SF of commercial biopharma space and has 700k liters of biomanufacturing capacity, which is the most in the world.
Massachusetts is home to 1,200 life sciences companies including top employers Takeda, Sanofi, and Fresenius. Massachusetts life sciences employees total around 120k. In addition, Massachusetts is number one in the National Institutes of Health per capita funding and number one in Medical Device Exports as percentage of all exports. In 2020, Massachusetts companies received $5.8 billion in Venture Capital funding. $1.5 billion in Massachusetts Life Sciences Initiative Incentives also make the state an attractive place for life sciences companies.
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More leading indicators:
- #1 in National Institutes of Health per capita funding
- #1 in Medical Device Exports as percentage of all exports
- $5.8 billion in Venture Capital funding in 2020
- $1.5 billion in Massachusetts Life Sciences Initiative Incentives
2023 Corporate Welcome Honoree: Akari Therapeutics (Boston)
Massachusetts Leading Life Sciences Employers:
Massachusetts Life Sciences Industry News
Recent Posts
After raising $41.5 million in Series A financing, biotech company AI Proteins leased 40K SF in Boston at One Kenmore Square for its headquarters.
Life sciences nonprofit Nucleate Boston moved into a converted lab building near South Station in Boston. The company has 6 full-time employees and ~900 active volunteers around the world and the startups in its Boston chapter.
Stoke Therapeutics signed a lease for 98,500 SF in Waltham. The biotech company is expanding its HQ as it moves from 38K SF of office and lab space in Bedford. The move will occur in late 2026.
Swiss biopharmaceutical giant Roche signed a 100K SF lease at Harvard’s new Enterprise Research Campus in Allston.
Cancer-focused biotech Kestrel Therapeutics moved from Allston to a ~9,800 SF HQ on the Arsenal on the Charles campus in Watertown, MA.
Marking one of the largest signed lease deals for commercial office and lab space in the Boston area in the past year, TransMedics, a tech company that helps coordinate organ transplants, will occupy 480K SF in Somerville's Assembly Square by January 2028.
Vaccine manufacturer Moderna announced an expansion of its U.S. manufacturing footprint, investing more than $140 million in Moderna Technology Center in Norwood.
Radiopharmaceutical products company Curium moved its global headquarters from Paris to Boston.
Labshares, Greater Boston’s shared laboratory provider for biotechnology companies, announced that it has signed a lease for a new 57,882 SF facility in Watertown, more than doubling its total footprint to more than 100K SF.
Expedition Medicines, a 40 person Cambridge biotech spinout of Flagship Pioneering that launched in October 2025, plans to use its platform to generate small-molecule medicines, particularly for treatments in areas like oncology and immunology.
UK medical products company Convatec is expanding its R&D facility in Lexington.
Massachusetts biotech company Sionna Therapeutics in Waltham grew its headcount by 71% since going public and is heading toward clinical milestones with its treatments for cystic fibrosis.
Cogent Biosciences signed a 32K SF lease for headquarters in Waltham’s CityPoint office cluster.
Enveric Biosciences moved its corporate headquarters from Florida to Cambridge. WThe biotech company is working on treatments for psychiatric and neurological disorders
ChemPartner, a Chinese contract research organization and contract development and manufacturing organization opened a new ~12K SF R&D site in Watertown.
Aldevron, which works on advancements in manufacturing DNA, RNA and proteins for advanced therapies, selected Waltham for its new innovation center that will allow it to recruit top talent from the Boston biotech community, more closely work with clients and speed up project timelines.
Radiopharmaceutical-focused company Lantheus recently expanded within Bedford.
Minerva Biotechnologies is moving from Waltham to a newly renovated, 13K SF lab-and-office suite at Cummings Park in Woburn.
Foghorn Therapeutics is leasing ~ 72,850 SF in Watertown for its its HQ, main executive offices, R&D, manufacturing, and more.
Mispro, a provider of contract vivarium (CV) space and services, announced the slated October 2025 opening of its eighth facility in the Boston area, located within the Southline Boston life sciences campus in Dorchester.
With a $50 million investment, Mariana Oncology, a fully integrated radiopharmaceutical company developing precision radioligand therapies to transform cancer treatment, is expanding by 30K SF in Watertown.
Veranova, a global leader in process development and manufacturing of APIs, broke ground on a 9K SF expansion in Devens that will include a state-of-the-art process development laboratory and two current Good Manufacturing Practice suites.
QurAlis Corp., a drug developer working on a treatment for ALS and other neurological diseases, is doubling its footprint in the life sciences cluster around Alewife in Cambridge with a new 30K SF headquarters, research facility, and office space.
Bioliberty, a healthtech startup in Scotland, will be establishing its U.S. HQ in Boston and is launching a new medical device that uses air pressure to help patients regain hand mobility.
Biotechnology company Roche will be investing in a new R&D center in Massachusetts where it will conduct cutting-edge AI research and serve as a hub for Roche's new cardiovascular, renal and metabolism research and development efforts.
The lease is one of the most significant life sciences real estate transactions in Greater Boston in recent years.
Italian drugmaker ITF Therapeutics, dedicated to bringing new therapeutic options to people living with rare diseases, has opened its new U.S. HQ in Concord.
Charles River's accelerator and development labs are a place for clients to do rodent in vivo preclinical studies.
10-year-old AI drug discovery company, Insilico Medicine, is moving its headquarters from New York to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. has unveiled plans for a $700 million institute for genetic medicine in Boston’s Seaport District. The opening is slated for 2024. The company has signed a 334,000-square-foot lease at 15 Necco St., a 12-story healthcare and life sciences building.
Shanghai-based Zai Lab Limited is expanding its Cambridge headquarters as it looks to become an international pharma giant.
an organ editing metabolic therapeutics company pioneering a new approach to the treatment of type 2 diabetes, will re-locate its operations from Lexington to Burlington, with an anticipated occupancy of Q4 2023.
Biopharmaceutical company Ventus Therapeutics, which is utilizing structural biology and a proprietary computational chemistry platform to identify and develop small molecule therapeutics across a broad range of diseases, opened a 13K SF office and lab facility in Waltham as the first phase of its planned global expansion.
Pharmaceutical company Thermo Fisher Scientific celebrated the official opening of its 289,416 SF building in Plainville. The state-of-the-art facility will add approximately 300 jobs to support the development, testing, and manufacturing of viral vectors.
Minnesota-based Trelleborg Healthcare & Medical is expand its manufacturing facility and BioPharma Center of Excellence in Northborough. The three-phase expansion project is expected to create at least 50 new jobs and phase one should commence in January 2023.
Pharmaceutical company Servier Pharmaceuticals unveiled its cancer-focused R&D campus in Boston's Seaport neighborhood.
Pharmaceutical company Bayer AG opened its new 62,100 SF Research and Innovation Center in Cambridge's Kendall Square, representing a $140 million investment.
Drugmaker Takeda is leasing 600K SF at a building under development in Cambridge's Kendall Square.
Biotechnology company Enanta signed a new lease to take lab-and-office space at a future building at Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc.’s Arsenal on the Charles campus in Watertown.
Accent Therapeutics, which works to provide therapies to cancer patients, leased 65,003 SF in Lexington.
COVID-19 vaccine creator, Moderna, Inc., received a $2.325 million LSI incentive and TIF agreement valued at $9.1 million. The Norwood company committed to hiring at least 155 new Massachusetts-based employees for high-tech manufacturing positions in 2021 and retaining through 2025.
Bristol Myers Squibb to build 244,000 SF cell therapy manufacturing facilities at Devens and add over 300 jobs.
BioMed Realty announced a major acquisition of property at Assembly Square in Somerville, at which it will build a multi-phased, 1.3 million square foot campus. The site, well-connnected by infrastructure to nearby Boston and Cambridge, is envisioned as a bet-in-class, purpose build innovation space for research, technology, and life science tenants.
Lykan Bioscience, an emerging manufacturer of clinical products to provide solutions in cell and gene therapy manufacturing, has moved into its new facility in Hopkinton. The company conducted a site search in MA and out-of-state and identified a viable location in Hopkinton. The project consists of lease and renovation of a vacant, 63,000 sq. ft. building to create a state-of-the-art clinical manufacturing facility. The company has created 125 new jobs and made a private investment of $12 million. The town of Hopkinton approved a 10-year TIF agreement valued at approximately $416,788 to support the project.
In Plainville, Mass., Thermo Fisher Scientific is building a 290,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, which will be the largest viral vector manufacturing facility in North America. The $190 million facility will be completed in 2222 and create more than 200 jobs.
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